


storm and sea

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 72
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 05:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19986742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Fjord has spent his whole life believing in something bigger than himself. He’s looked out onto the ocean on a cold, wet day and thought: If it wants me dead, then I’m dead. There isn’t much point in hiding from the sea. Sooner or later, it’ll get you.





	storm and sea

...

...

**storm and sea**

...

...

Fjord has spent his whole life believing in something bigger than himself. He’s looked out onto the ocean on a cold, wet day and thought: _If it wants me dead, then I’m dead_. There isn’t much point in hiding from the sea. Sooner or later, it’ll get you.

His hands are calloused from climbing the rigging, rope burning through his palms. The wooden deck creaks like an old man on a bad day, but it’s the only home Fjord has ever cared for.

“You’re going to do good things,” Vandran says, and he smiles. Fjord listens to every word, watches everyone in the room do the same. Vandran is good at getting people to listen. He’s better at getting people to talk.

Fjord can’t refute him, but there’s something niggling at his gums. He files down his tusks bloody and waits for them to grow back with sick, furious impatience. Eating is a challenge. If Vandran notices that Fjord swallows down too-salty stew while avoiding anything harder than an overboiled potato, he doesn’t say anything. The only ones stupid enough to do so get a broken nose.

_Is this how good people behave?_ Fjord wonders, knuckles raw and chest heaving. He doesn’t think so.

…

…

It gets easy. That’s the thing: it gets _so easy_ , and by then it’s wasted potential.

He’s never had anything like this – it’s power, it’s prophecy. Fjord has always been meant to do good things, and here is the proof. A sword that wills itself into existence and an ability to put a face to his multitude of voices. Fjord isn’t angry (Fjord is _furious_ ); Fjord doesn’t exist. Here is a fancy human nobleman, tall and haughty. Here is a stooped beggar gnome, desperate for food. Fjord is so many people.

Fjord smiles at people and they don’t flinch away. Fjord files down his teeth and spits out globs of blood and it’s painful, it’s penance, it’s – something. Fjord wonders if Vandran would have approved. Fjord wonders why he cares.

He gets into fights, because underneath the new layers of skin he’ll always been green. It’s something stupid – some men, harassing a pretty barmaid. _Let’s get out of here_ , one of them is saying, leaning over her. _I know a nice place we could go – I could pay you so much more than what you’re making here, little thing –_

Fjord doesn’t know what happens next, because it’s a blur. He kills them.

The barmaid gives him such a tired look when their bodies fall to the floor, sizzling. It’s late, but not late enough to attract the usual evening crowd: there’s still a speck of sunlight riding low in the sky, burning itself out against the ocean. Fjord can’t look away from the two dead men on the ground, at the spark of light that had shot from his hand to their chests.

“I could have handled it,” the barmaid says, stepping over the men and going around the bar. “Get rid of them yourself. You’ve got ten minutes before I get the guard.”

Fjord has never killed someone before.

He looks down at his hands, and they’re still crackling with residual energy, sparks flying out from his fingernails. There’s a kind of static-y quality to his skin. When he touches the wall, he gives himself a small electrical shock.

“Seven minutes,” the barmaid calls out.

Fjord takes one of the bodies by the leg and starts to drag it out onto the street.

There’s a lesson in all of this, somewhere, but he’s too tired to find it. He isn’t wearing his face (Fjord is almost never wearing his face, now, even though it drains him to almost nothing), so all he has to do is jump into a corner and switch strides. It’s easy. It’s frighteningly easy.

Vandran would have disapproved.

Fjord clutches onto that thought like a lifeline, fingernails sinking in deep. He has so many things he wants to say to his Captain, but most of all he wants to know what he would _do_ in this situation. Fjord has killed two men and it sits low and hard in his gut. Fjord has killed two men and he needs to learn how to control this – _whatever it is_ – inside of him, or he’s going to go insane.

(Or he’s going to do it again).

Fjord leaves town and he doesn’t look back.

…

…

A magical sword doesn’t save him from iron manacles and branding irons.

It doesn’t save Jester, either, or Yasha. Fjord hangs his head heavy in the chains and feels his tusks jutting out into his lower lip. He wonders how many people he’s killed now. He wonders if Vandran would have let this happen.

“It will be okay,” Jester whispers. They’ve broken her fingers again, left them hanging purple and raw inside the cuffs. Her tail, too. Fjord wants to scream. “They’ll find us.”

“I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t have to,” Fjord says in Vandran’s voice. It’s a good voice – low, and soothing. He thinks they both need some low, soothing voices right this minute. “Kind of hoping we’d be out of this by now.”

In the distance, Yasha lets out a low wail.

Fjord looks away from the door. He couldn’t summon his sword even if he wanted to: what good would it do? Nothing. Useless. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get both Jester and Yasha _out of here_ before something worse happens.

He just – can’t.

It’s a slap to the face, his weakness. He hasn’t felt this way since he woke up on the sandy beach, sunburnt cheeks and bloody shell-punctures mixing into the saltwater.

“They’ll find us, Fjord,” Jester says. Her eyes glitter with unshed tears.

Fjord gives up. “I know they will, Jessie.”

…

…

There is so much power in a single step.

Fjord walks up the stairs, and up the stairs, and up the stairs, and –

Vandran isn’t there.

Fjord wakes up.

…

…

_I don’t like being a hostage_.

It’s dead reflex, the way the nothingness of it forms at his fingertips. Fjord has a lifetime’s worth of weakness to act on, and so much blood to atone for. Fjord talks with Vandran’s voice and it sits heavy on his tongue. His face won’t match up, the expression flat. Fjord has always been a good actor, but he’s missing the beats.

He walks forward. “You need me,” he says, slowly. “More than I need you.”

Nothing.

Fjord smiles. He presses the blade deeper into his own chest. He imagines, faintly, that the metal scrapes against the stone orb still somewhere inside of him.

This is power. Fjord cuts out the infection and bleeds it dry. Fjord sets his voice to his face. Fjord throws away the sword and watches it burn to ash.

He is empty.

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY GOD EPISODE 72 WAS SO AMAZING 
> 
> I'm so happy to be a part of this fandom you guys.


End file.
